On today’s date 1517, a parish priest and university professor by the name of Martin Luther challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In announcing his 95 “Theses”, or discussion topics, Luther wanted to reform the errors of the Roman Church. Unfortunately for Rome, they refused to be reformed, and the Protestant Reformation was born.

The Reformation had far reaching effects. In translating the Bible into German, Luther in effect, standardized the language. In addition, the churches of the Augsburg Confession (as the Lutheran churches were known in Luther’s day) held that Rome had no secular political authority, which meant that local governments no longer had to obey Rome.

The transition from the autocratic theocracy that was Europe in 1517, to the freedom we in the USA enjoy today did not come quickly, and more than a few people shed blood to make it happen. However in a very real way, the liberty which we enjoy (for the time being) in our nation had its roots in those 95 These nailed to the Church door in Wittenburg Germany all those years ago.

Luther did not set out to start a new Church, he wanted to fix the one he had. Luther also did not set out to change the world. he merely wanted to see the God’s word rightly proclaimed to the people. The amazing thing is that God used this unknown preacher in a backwater college to begin the process of reshaping the world.

I recently asked my friends’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President of the United States. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there. So I asked her, “If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?” She replied, “I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.” Her parents beamed.

“Wow…what a worthy goal,” I told her. “But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my driveway, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.”

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?”

The lovely & gracious Michelle is reporting (via Stacy McCain) that RINO leftist and Newtie Gin-grinch darling Deidre “Dede” Scozzafava has finally read the writing on the wall and dropped out of the NY-23rd district race. The likelihood grows stonger now that bona fide conservative Doug Hoffman takes the seat.

Memo to the RINOs currently in hijack of the GOP: This is what happens when you piss off the base, assclowns!

…anyway, it kicks off with this blurb concerning Widdle Terri Owens’ seeming obsession with Roy Williams.

Owens said, per Pro Football Talk yesterday, “I’ve been looking at my stats compared to Roy E. Williams’ stats over there in Dallas, and my goal is to have better stats then him at the end of the season.”

Which just goes to show, Terri, that you completely missed the point of the trade which brought Williams to Dallas in the first place.

Roy was brought in, not to compete with you, but to take some of the double team pressure off you, so that you could be more productive. (That the plan failed to work is beside the point.) On the other hand, had you bothered to…oh, I dunno…CATCH THE CRITICAL PASSES THAT WERE THROWN BETWEEN THE FUCKIN’ EIGHT AND ONE ON YOUR CHEST, DUMBASS!!!…mayhap the plan would have worked a little better, no?

Anyway, we here in the Realm aren’t all that sure that it’s Williams on whom you should be focusing.

As one could probably guess, this isn’t exactly a lofty goal at this point. Playing in five games this year, Williams has 12 catches for 230 yards and a touchdown; Owens, in seven games, has 18 catches for 242 yards and one touchdown. Perhaps Owens, in his advanced age, is bowing to the inevitable erosion of skills–basically, being realistic. He’s certainly not throwing down any sort of noticeable gauntlet.

If he wanted to do that, he’d set his goals with a bit more bravado, go after the numbers of, say, Miles Austin.

And that would just be crazy.

To be sure. Austin’s played four fewer games than Widdle Terri…and outgained him by 260 yards with three more balls caught. And the C’boys are 4-2, whilst the Bills are…3-4.

Uh…Terrell who?

On to the PFW. My Arlington Heights Yellow Jackets will go up tonight against the Eastern Hills Highlanders in the last district game of the year prior to the annual playoff one-and-done. Eastern Hills will put up token resistance, but as long as the Jackets don’t look too much at the Highlander cheerleaders (grin), they should make fairly easy work of the football team.

Bob Stoopes’ 21st-ranked Oklahoma Sooners go for the mythical Kansas championship this weekend as the K-State Wildcats come to Memorial Stadium for their annual grilling at OU’s hands. The Sooners are a 28-point favorite, and I expect they’ll cover.

Nebraska, OTOH, is a different story. The Cornhuskers are a 13½-point favorite at Baylor tomorrow. Then again…they were favored at home against Iowa State, weren’t they? Keep your eyes peeled on this one; I can’t guarantee you Baylor doesn’t outright win this game.

The marquee college game this week…seeing as UBuffalo’s off (cough), is the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels against the sixth-ranked Texas Christian Horned Frogs.

Remember the concept of “attaboy/awshit”? You can accumulate ten thousand “attaboys” – such as TCU’s monumental victory last week against BYU – but it only takes one “aw, shit”…such as potentially losing to the Rebs this week at home…whereupon you lose all your attaboys, and you have to start ALL…OVER…AGAIN.

Therefore, memo to Gary Patterson: Coach, put these guys away, and do it quick. Let them hang around, and it’s potential disaster. We need a squash this week, the quicker the better.

Go get’m.

Sunday, the Dallas C’boys are at home for what should be a win against a banged-up Seattle Seahawk team. Seattle’s O-line is in patchwork array, and they just put All-World left tackle Walter Jones on IR, ending his season (and, as speculation goes, his career as well). Jones was one of the few tackles whom you could trust to at least hold his own one-on-one against Demarcus Ware. Look for the Dallas pass rush to have a field day Sunday – I wouldn’t wanna be Matt Hasselbeck RightAboutNow.

We’re back Monday for the recap. In the meantime Purdue’s only a 6½-point road dog against Bucky, and my question for HDD is: Shouldn’t this be more? They’re not that evenly matched, are they?

Gingrich called Scozzafava a “liberal Republican” for her support of gay marriage and abortion rights. But he defended those positions as in-step with her district and her predecessor, former Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), who was tapped to be President Barack Obama’s Army Secretary.

But he said that her endorsement from the National Rifle Association, her signing a no tax-increase pledge, and her opposition to cap-and-trade and healthcare reform legislation made her “adquately conservative in an upstate New York district.”

Oh, really, Newtie? Joe Liberman has indicated he’s not necessarily willing to rubber-stamp Dingy Harry’s health-care clusterfuck – and I know of damned few folks who would ever confuse Mr. Lieberman with a conservative, now do you?

But no, here’s Newtie’s money quote on the Scozzafava Shitstorm:

“So I say to my many conservative friends who suddenly decided whether they’re from Minnesota, or Alaska, or Texas, they know more than the upstate New York Republicans? I don’t think so,” he added.

Now it comes out that this clown is contemplating Yet Another Run for President:

“Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we’ll decide, if there’s a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there’s not a requirement, if other people have filled the vacuum, I suspect we won’t.”

There’s no writeup I could find for Jackets-Scorpions, but what I did find was that Omar Valadez was four-of-seven for 158 yards; Marquis Jackson caught 2 balls for 78 yards and a touchdown, and also carried twice for 24 yards, amd Michael Jacobs ran eight times for 55 yards. Dennis Brooks also caught two passes for 80 yards and two touchdowns.

The Heights defense held South Hills to 84 total yards.

—

I guess I should be grateful that UBuffalo at least got to overtime against W. Michigan on the road.

AJ Principe kicked a 28-yard field goal as regulation expired, then the Bulls could muster nothing on their possession in overtime, and John Rachuna missed a 43-yard FG attempt. WMU’s John Potter ended things with a 28-yard field goal.

Zac Maynard had a career day in the loss, going 26-51-327 and a touchdown, but also had two picks. Ike Nduka had 172 yards and 3 touchdowns on 18 carries.

—

Defense was the story of the day for the Oklahoma Sooners, as they picked off Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing on the Jayhawks first three possessions – one of those a pick six where Reesing not only telegraphed his pass, but hesitated as if to ask OU corner Dominique Franks, “OK, Dom, you ready?”

Landry Jones was 26-38-252 with a couple of touchdowns, and the running game fared a little better this week than against TU, going for 85 yards, lead by Chris Brown with 66 on 22 carries and two TDs.

—

Okay, call him a two-hit wonder.

Miles Austin followed up his record-setting monster game with six catches for 171 yards – one a nice little 59-yard bomb – as the C’boys overcame two Atlanta touchdown drives at the beginning of each half.

Romo went 21-29-311 with three touchdowns (two to Austin) – and, more importantly, no interceptions. And he looked like the Romo of old during the first-half two-minute drill, bumping off Falcon defenders like a pinball en route to a short five-yard TD pass to Patrick Crayton.

Crayton would also contribute on special teams, taking a punt in the fourth quarter and streaking, literally untouched, for a 73-yard score. All of this after he lost his #2 receiver position, then his job returning punts (he was there in the fourth because Allen Rossum, signed by the Pokes last week, suffered an injured hammy earlier).

Perhaps he should be demoted like that more often.

The defense also helped out, gathering two picks and sacking Atlanta QB Matt Ryan four times after Ryan had gone 143 pass attempts without getting dumped.

It was the Cowboys’ best effort and most complete game in a while. One hopes they can keep it going.

A punt team asleep at the switch on fourth-and-five, allowing a 20-yard fake punt. A defense that allowed a 47-yard TD bomb on the very next play.

And it results in losing for the first time at home in thirty-two (32) fucking years to a team without its two best offensive weapons.

All on the heels of that embarrassment last week at the hands of Losers Signs Guns Up U.

There was no fucking excuse for these last two piece-of-shit lackings of effort by the Cornhuskers. And, as much as I’ve sung his praises for the last five years or so…Bo Pelini, this is all on you.

It would be one thing if Roy Helu or Don Robinson or Zac Lee lost these turnovers against the T-Sip Shortdicks or the VaTech Hokies or the Miami Hurricanes. You could justify letting them continue to play then.

But this was against Iowa Fucking State, for Cthulu’s sake. Screw something up against them, these stupid little snot-noses should sit for the rest of the damned day! Yet you let them continue to play and continue to commit clusterfuck after clusterfuck after clusterfuck.

What the hell does that say about you as a head coach, Bo?

The Huskers outgained the Cyclones 362 to 239 (248-102 passing), but let Iowa State outrush them 137-114.

One-thirty-seven to one-fourteen.

Chew on that for a second. The preeminent college football rushing attack of the 20th century let itself get outgained at home by the second-worst team in its own league.

Pelini, son, you need to take a looooooooong, hard look at what you’re wanting to accomplish at the University of Nebraska, and how you’re going about getting it. I’ve long been an admirer of yours because of the passion you bring to the game and the program, but at some point you’ve got to show at least a modicum of competence. And in the Big XII, that means beating pansy-assed programs like Iowa State. Especially at home.

Lookit. You (Oklahoma) just lost to a vastly inferior team. TCU’s gonna take these pussies and beat the shit out of them in Provo in October

And after the obligatory TCU three-and-out, that’s exactly what the Frogs did. The Christians jumped out to a 21-0 lead before a Mormon drive before the end of the first half. One of those drives was aided by a little Smurf Turf State razzle-dazzle-type play:

After taking a 7-0 lead on a 4-yard run by Joseph Turner, the Frogs caught the Cougars by surprise with a reverse pitch pass deep in their own territory. Receiver Jeremy Kerley looked like he was going to throw the ball away and avoid a big loss when he spotted Jimmy Young open near midfield and threw it for a 44-yard gain.

Patterson said he wasn’t paying attention when one of his assistants called the trick play.

“They must have known to do it on first down because that way I wouldn’t veto it,” Patterson said.

(As an aside, I find it somewhat strange that, after their late-first-half TD drive, BYU didn’t keep shredding the TCU secondary. But I imagine that, with their behemoth back Harvey Unga, they figured they could gash the Froggies at will.)

In the second half, Andy Dalton found Antoine Hicks for a 75-yard bomb to make it 31-7, then TCU would recover a Maxine Hall fumble off a sack, whereupon Dalton would lead another scoring drive for the final margin.

Dalton was 13-24-241, and Matthew Tucker & Joseph Turner would lead the Frogs rushing attack with 42 and 36 yards, respectively, part of a 127-yard ground effort.

One note that’ll shock at least one of the Denizens here: I’m about to admit that the refs were a bit kinder to TCU than they should’ve been – particularly on one play.

Third quarter, third and a country mile, Maxine Hall rolls out, throws the pass (it was incomplete) – then fell to the ground as he was tripped up by all-everything defensive end Jerry Hughes – who took at least three steps, then dived to get to Hall.

Sound like a gripe I’ve made before?

TCU caught a break there. Hughes should’ve been flagged for that. He & the Frogs were fortunate that Hall didn’t pull a hammy or wrench a knee there.

But fate seems to be smiling on this bunch. For now, anyway.

This week: 4-2. Overall: 29-15.

The PFW will reconvene on Friday, at which time we’ll once again explain the concept of “attaboy/awshit”.

Folks, Darth has totally lost his mind! He has allowed a wannabe Lutheran preacher, with a big mouth, to post to this blog!

For those who don’t know, Rifqa Bary is a seventeen year old young lady who after converting from Islam to Christianity, fled her home in Ohio, taking refuge with a Florida couple. Rifqa believes that if she returns to her parents home, her life would be in danger. Recently the Florida authorities ruled that she should be returned to Ohio, to the custody of the Ohio family court authorities; who have said that she will not be returned to her parents if doing so would place her in danger.

Now it seems that there is some question as to the immigration status of Rifqa and her parents. Until that is confirmed one way or the other, Rifqa is apparently going to be kept in Florida.

As I recall, Rifqa turned seventeen this past June. If this immigration thing carries on another eight months, the court will no longer be able to control where Rifqa lives. If Rifqa’s parents are deported, she could be allowed to stay in the USA because to return to Sri Lanka would place her life in danger.

Assuming that Miss Rifqa is being truthful, I hope that the courts will move at their customary snail’s pace.

We start this edition of the Perfect Football Weekend by noting, with a modicum of surprise, that Warshington Deadskins owner/spoiled brat Danny Snyder did not fire head coach Jim Zorn after the ‘Skins surrendered the first win of the year for the previously 0-and-5 Kansas City Chiefs. Coming on the heels of giving up the Detroit Lions’ first (and, we might add, only) win in nearly two years, and noting Danny Boy’s tempestuous nature, one would have supposed ol’ Jimbo would have been searching the classifieds for an offensive coordinator’s position by now.

Zorn was told after a 14-6 setback to the previously winless Kansas City Chiefs that he will not call offensive plays anymore. Executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato met with Zorn and told him that he has too many responsibilities right now, Redskins’ director of communications Zack Bolno said.

A league source told ESPN.com’s Matt Mosley that Sherman Lewis, who was hired Oct. 6 as an offensive consultant for the Redskins, will assume play-calling duties. Lewis was the play caller during his tenures as offensive coordinator in Minnesota, Green Bay and Detroit.

Good luck with all that. According to the linked article, Warshington – and yes, the spelling is deliberate, thank you – is…

the first team in NFL history to face six consecutive winless opponents, but they haven’t managed to take advantage.

Suddenly, I feel a little better about the matchups with the Cowgirls this year. Not much. Just a little.

On to the PFW. Back to action for my Arlington Heights Yellow Jackets, as they take on the South Hills Scorpions tonight on the southeast side of town. The Scorps have had a tough time of it this year, giving us a big oh-fer (0-7). I don’t look for anything to change; give me Heights to win comfortably.

After a two game win streak, it’s back to reality for Turner Gill and the UBuffalo Bulls, as they travel to Western Michigan for a Saturday morning tilt. All Turner’s running backs are hurt, so Zach Maynard is going to have to have a monster game with Naaman Roosevelt if the Bulls are to have a chance. WMU is favored by five at home, which sounds about right.

Bob Stoopes and the 25th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners could have picked a better opponent for the post-TU debacle hangover. Unfortunately, the schedule has them at 21st-ranked Kansas to play RockChalkJayhawk, who’s a 7½-point home dog. A betting man will take Kansas straight up and be happy; I’m not terribly convinced that last week was OU’s last loss this year.

Fortunately for Bo Pelini and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, their own hangover for the TTech loss will be somewhat easier, as Iowa State comes in to offer up their virgin sacrifice. It’s an 18-point spread in Vegas; look for the Huskers in a romp.

The marquee college game of the week occurs in Provo, Utah tomorrow – so much so that Kirkie Herbstreit, Lee Corso and the rest of ESPN’s College Gameday crew will set up shop there for the broadcast, as seventh-ranked (BCS) Texas Christian goes up against the 16th-ranked BYU Fucking Mormons in Big Game Of The Year Number One.

If this is to be the magical year that everyone’s forecasting for TCU, Patterson’s boys have to win this game. Dalton & company are favored by 2½ on the road, so it’s really a pick’em. The over-under on number of fingernails I have left afterwards is two.

In the Anti-Climactic Game Of The Year on Sunday, the Cowgirls will return to their get-the-crap-beaten-outta-them ways by the Atlanta Falcons. That is to say, unless Miles Austin has another lights-out game…?

Nah. I don’t think so, either.

We’re back Monday for the recap. Meanwhile, Bucky is off this week, so the question for HDD is: What went wrong against Iowa?

Those of you who’ve not been hiding under a rock for the last two weeks will have taken note of the goings-on in the 23rd dictrict up in Noo Yawk State, where the Stoopid PartyGOPRepublicans Stoopid Party has nominated leftist bimboid Dede Scozzafava – winner of the prestigious, heavily-sought-after-by-the-Right Margaret Sanger Award – as its candidate for that particular seat. And what’s especially disturbing about this is that not only has the local GOP up there endorsed her candidacy, so has another Republican of note.

“The special election for the 23rd Congressional District is an important test leading up to the mid-term 2010 elections,” Gingrich said in a statement to supporters. “Our best chance to put responsible and principled leaders in Washington starts here, with Dede Scozzafava.”

Denizens, you didn’t hear from me last night because I was on the verge of being, to employ the aphorism, sick as a dog. And right now, I’m about to be that way again.

This, right here, is what the philosophy of the Big Tent has gotten us. The idea that there was enough room in the Republican Party for diametrically opposing views on certain topics that have only one correct resolution…that is to say, if we were to uphold the values & ideals which have sustained us the last 230-plus years…has all but ruined us as a political party. There’s a reason we lost the majority in Congress in 2006 – because we were too fucking busy acting like Demoscum to remember that we’re supposed to be the conservatives around here!

And this “big tent” philosophy, which is nothing more than the surrendering of one’s spine in order to get more people to like you and vote for you – “naw, it doesn’t matter if you wanna kill babies, c’mon in here and have a drink with us and we’ll all be Republicans together!” – is a direct ancestor of the bogus concept of “compassionate conservatism”, just more of the same ol’, same ol’ “Pweeze, I’m not such a bad ogre, pweeze wike meeeee!!!!!”, until we’ve pulled so damned many of them into the tent that we get people like Dede Scozzafava, who’s so pro-abortion, pro-heterophobe “marriage”, pro-Porkulus, pro-everything leftist that she even got the endorsement of the pussy Markos Moulitsas over at the Daily Kos. (The link is over at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/1/12236/8760 – and no, that son-of-a-crack-whore-bitch gets no direct link traffic from this site as long as I have anything to say about it.)

And Gingrich, I figured you knew better. You made your name with the Contract with America, where you laid out 10 of the best governmental initiatives I’ve ever seen, and on that strength of those initiatives, broke the stranglehold the Imperial Socialist Congress had on the American people for the previous 40 years. And ever since then, you’ve steadily drifited more and more leftward – until last year, when you lay down on the couch with San Fran Nan Piglousi, the Shrieker of the House, and bleated ad infinitum, ad nauseam about the long-since-debunked POS philosophy called “climate change”.

And now this.

You’re of scant little use to the conservative movement anymore, Gingrich. You’re just like Lindsey Grahamnesty, Olympia Snowjob, Susie “Barnabas” Collins John McLame and Benedict Sphincter – salt that has lost its saltiness, and is no longer worthy of anything save being thrown to the ground and trampled underfoot. “On the ashheap of history”, as Reagan so succinctly put it.

The fact is that we have become so damned fucking lukewarm as a party, not standing firm for one thing or the other, that it’s very small wonder that the electorate has spit us out of its collective mouth. And rightly so, too. We have lost our way – such that we kept sending the aforementioned leftist Sphincter back again & again to the Imperial Senate until he finally shed all pretense of being a Republican and turned Demoscum on us, and now we’re nominating an avowed leftist for public office and giving the coldest of shoulders to the bona fide conservative up there, Doug Hoffman.

We have a golden opportunity here, given that the Demoscum are tanking in the polls – yet, instead of pushing their heads down into the water, we seem hell-bent on racing them to the bottom. That’s a Republican seat up there in Noo Yawk, a rarity nowadays, and has been for years – but no more if Scuzzy & Newt have their way.

Ronaldus Magnus once said of the Democrats, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party, the Party left me”.

The Republican Party & I have been somewhat estranged for years, though I still continue to vote for those conservatives who fly under the GOP banner, and in fact voted for McRINO because of the Sarahcuda.

But if socialist bimboid Dede Scozzafava is installed into NY-23, the Party will have finished leaving me, AFAIC.

All year, FOX has worked 24/7 to block President Obama’s agenda—repeating lies about “death panels,” promoting Tea Party protests, and whipping up fake political scandals.1

Now, President Obama is fighting back. The White House communications director said FOX is a “wing of the Republican Party…let’s not pretend they’re a news network.”2 To draw attention to its biased coverage, President Obama will not appear on FOX for the rest of this year.3

It’s about time Democrats stood up to FOX! Can you sign this petition asking Democrats to support President Obama’s stance by staying off FOX as long as he does? We’ll deliver it to Sen. Lautenberg and Sen. Menendez. Clicking here will add your name:

http://civic.moveon.org/foxobama/o.pl?id=17603-12662345-_CGt.ax&t=3

The petition says: “Democrats should support President Obama’s effort to call out FOX. Please stay off FOX for as long as he does.”

Feel free to go read the rest. Essentially, it boils down to this: Bambi will meet with Ahmadinnerjacket, Kim Jong “Mentally” Il, et. al. – but he and the rest of the Demoscum are too chickenshit to go on Fox News.

It helps, though, if you have Microsoft Internet Explorer set about 1024x768 1280x1024 with your Favorites window activated on the left deactivated. (At least until I can get a better handle on how WordPress works.)